Man’s ‘herb garden’ leads to drug charges

PEKIN — Jerry Redmon said he knew his new hobby carried some risk, but he hoped it would lead to a job in specialty horticulture. He wanted to keep his garden secret.

The 6-foot-tall privacy fence that Redmon, 53, recently built around his backyard, however, couldn’t keep the pungent aroma of 141 marijuana plants from wafting through his tightly packed block of small homes on the city’s north side.

A batch of neighborhood children this month followed their curiosity to the fence around the yard at 1604 Matilda St., peeked through a gap, took some pictures and posted them online.

“You put something like that on Facebook and everybody’s going to know about it,” a neighbor said Wednesday.

That included the police officers who came July 1 to call on Redmon as he tended his crop.

“They saw him in the yard” among the 117 plants rooted in the ground and 24 growing in pots, said Pekin police Public Information Officer Mike Eeten. Redmon let the officers in and told his story.

“He said he knew (the plants) were illegal, but it was a hobby of his,” Eeten said. “He was anticipating medical marijuana in Illinois.

“He wanted to get a head start on how to grow it and hoped he could get a job with a cannabis production plant.”

The state this year legalized marijuana for limited medical uses in a pilot program that has not yet begun. Licenses to produce and distribute the drug, still otherwise illegal, are expected to be issued soon — but not to home growers.

Redmon, who has no prior criminal record in Tazewell County, is now charged with possession of more than 50 marijuana plants and felony possession of marijuana.

Inside his home, officers found 626 grams of the drug, dried and processed, in several plastic bags, according to a prosecutor’s court affidavit.

Eeten said an anonymous tip led police to Redmon’s garden. “Someone saw it or smelled it,” he said.

One of his neighbors said neither she nor others nearby knew of it “before the police showed up,” but she later learned some neighborhood kids had discovered it.

Redmon “is a nice guy,” said the neighbor, who asked not to be identified.

Redmon posted $1,000 cash bond for his release pending prosecution, which will begin Thursday with his arraignment.

Eeten said police pulled and bagged the marijuana crop, which remains stored for now in the Police Department’s evidence locker.